L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle
by ThatChildIsBacon
Summary: crossroadscastiel on tumblr had the idea for an AU where Will is the devil to whom Hannibal sells his soul after he loses his parents and Mischa, and to whom Hannibal owes all his power and success later on in life. Will meets a trembling young waif in a forest one winter and strikes a deal for his soul. When he calls to collect, the child is gone and a monster stands in his place.


He first found the boy near dead, shivering in the cold of winter and so emaciated he was little more than thin, papery skin stretched over hollow bone. He wouldn't say he took pity on the creature- that would be entirely against his nature- but he was certainly intrigued. There was something bitter in his soul, some seed locked down and kept at bay before, now left untethered and free to grow into maturity. Though scarcely alive, the little beast had fire in him. Will could sense his strength of spirit in the fight he gave against the foul cattle who called themselves his keepers. Could smell his refusal to give in though all he had was taken from him, a bitter tang which lay thick over his tongue. The boy was young, he could so easily have given up and joined his kin in whatever vision of an afterlife he kept buried in his heart. Instead he clung shivering and weak to whatever pathetic tendril of life he had left.

Will had taken the trip as a mere reprieve of duty, bored as he was of the never-ending grind of his day to day. Though he had lived a thousand years or more, he had rarely travelled further than a few day's walk from his home. Nothing he found ever really excited him, some days he thought nothing ever would. This encounter, deep in a forgotten forest in the biting winds of a brutal winter, was like a dream. He was being handed a rich and plentiful reward, it would be imprudent to reject it.

He came to the child in the dead of night, as he lay feigning sleep on his coarse wooden pallet in a shed which did nothing to keep out the cold. He was even more wretched up close, bones casting angles his face could scarcely accommodate. The boy put up no resistance as he settled himself on the next pallet but one, save to rearrange his frail limbs into something resembling a sitting position to better see his visitor. His body made promised his atrophied muscles could scarcely keep.

"Who are you?" the boy asked, voice thin like old parchment. Eyes fixed in an almost childish wonder on the polished horns, gleaming dark and dangerous where they peaked through his curls.

"You can call me Will" he replied, voice gentle as dusk, "What's your name child?"

"Hannibal Lecter" he said, voice a mere wisp.

"Tell me, Hannibal Lecter, what do you want most in this world?"

"Mischa" he whispered with reverence, eyes wet, distant and voice thick with emotion.

"Mischa?" Will echoed, though in truth he knew full well what he meant. _Who_ he meant.

"My sister. She died."

Will tutted softly, reaching impossibly far to touch young Hannibal's thin, brittle hair. "Now child, you should know more than most that once a soul is gone it is gone."

It was not quite a lie, and not quite the truth. A soul could perhaps be returned. But only if the body it resided in was undamaged enough to receive it. This Mischa lay in the bellies of the cowards who keep the boy, and in piles of wasted bone and flesh and viscera discarded for the creatures of the forest. If he focused he could sense the essence of her flesh in the belly of the boy before him, fed to him in a vindictive private joke. If he focused even more he could tell the boy knew it too. She would not be returning from her death any time soon.

Hannibal made no further objections, no cries of 'but she's my sister' or 'but I love her', stock phrases that this rejection was so often wont to pull. His eyes dropped to the empty pallet between the two of them, posture little more than a soft, slumped acceptance of fact. The little fight he had left in him was waning, Will could sense it. His defeat tasted of copper.

"I can't give your Mischa, Hannibal, but you can do something. What do you want to do? If you could have anything, be anything what would you choose?"

The boy cast a pale, baleful look over to the house, cold, hard anger trembling his feeble frame. "I want to kill them. I want to be strong enough to kill them" he said.

"What would you give? To be strong enough?"

"Anything." His voice was hushed, like he was passing Will a terrible secret.

Matching his tone, Will leant forward once again, impossibly close. He was sat on the disused bed a pallet away, and yet he crackled in the very air around Hannibal. It felt as if he was merely perched on the edge of what was once Mischa's cot. Of what would remain so until the last essence of her scent had fled the decrepit hovel they had been forced to call home.

"Would you give your soul?" he said, his presence a sizzle and hiss in the back of Hannibal's throat, a buzz behind his eyes.

The night seemed to hold its breath, hung suspended as it was in this moment of indecision. Will knew in the yawning void of what used to be his soul that he would give the child more time than perhaps was proper. Time enough to live. His Sight had shown him the broken soul of this grieving young child, held together only with a bitter anger and grief. The decision was made before he even considered it. All that remained was for the boy to accept.

"Yes" he eventually admitted, small and fragile and oh so weak.

Will smiled, a terrible, beautiful smile, and reached out to smooth a hand over the child's pale hair. "Then it is done." He pressed a thumb to his mouth, pushed it softly against the child's thin, bloodless lips. A deal sealed in an almost kiss.

A wooziness took Hannibal then, brought on by weakness or malnutrition or grief. Or maybe the strength of the pact itself. It was hard to tell with these delicate, broken, human bodies. Will lowered Hannibal back onto his pallet, tucking the thin blanket back over the boy though it was meagre defence against the cold. No matter, he would not need it soon.

"Are you leaving?" Hannibal slurred, already half asleep. Half convinced this was a dream, brought on by cold and gnawing hunger.

"I will see you again Hannibal. Spend your years wisely" And then he was gone, a quivering young soul locked away in a promise.

It was 40 years before he would see the boy again.

The years passed neither slowly nor in a blur, but in the ever moving trudge and glide of time. Hannibal grew, and Will did not spare him another thought. Souls came and went from his realm, and though he was aware of the deal like a flickering candle flame burning at the corner of his mind, he paid it no heed. In any case, the boys deed was all but harmless, the intentions almost blameless in their transparency. It was greed Will despised, sell a soul to gain a fortune. The child's revenge was something he fully endorsed, charmed as he was by the youthful innocence of his request.

The years kept him busy enough, people did die every day after all. Punishments were sought for the damned, their souls left to wallow in the abyss of their own creation. He had sated his curiosity for his neighbouring realm with the boy. The quivering, wretched young stray had slaked his thirst for interaction, but that was all. There was something in the air that called to him more strongly than an encounter with a mere forest orphan in the bitter night. He could almost taste the presence of a visceral manifestation of carnality that could easily grow as powerful as he.

Something was changing, something dark and sinister and oh so delicious. Sometimes he felt the essence of a vision just out of sight, calling to him. Shadows swarming to amass the shape of a man that wasn't a man. A beast with two faces and a gaping maw where his soul should be. A monster not unlike himself. He stood enthralled.

Sometimes the souls brought to him had the scent of it. Fear and blood an ever-present essence, but the iron tang of something else just out of reach. Sharp and cold and almost metallic. A marking of its kill. It felt like a blessing, a gift. It felt like a courting.

Some days he caught himself feeling almost disappointed that none of these gifts came, others they would follow in quick succession. Never predictable, and always so beautifully broken when they came. They had played a role in their own destruction, had known why they were dying as the murders took place. It was almost as if someone or something was trying to show him a mirror image of his life's work. Where he should feel threatened, he felt excited. Where the encroaching sense of fear should creep in, only interest stood.

The sheer exquisiteness of the carnality, the magnificence of baseness, sang to him. Kept him more than occupied as the years outside of his sanctuary marched on.

By the time the soul was due to be collected, Will had almost forgotten about the existence of Hannibal Lecter. True, the half dead orphan was a memory filled with fondness, one he came back to from time to time. But the boy had not expired before his time, nor had he tried to find a way out of the deal. If anything, it was the most straightforward mark he had ever taken.

But a deal was a deal, and a soul promised was a soul to be taken.

The hounds went first. They tended to soften up his quarry. Will loved his hounds, probably more than the creatures in his care. Warped, grotesque souls, they sickened him to look at, all of them brimming with the same sins. He tired of their endless perversions, an unending assault on his senses. Their souls ached for redemption whilst they suffered in punishments of their own making. His dogs were almost pure in their instincts, they didn't lie or cheat or try and play him out of punishments. In fact, if the indebted parties were particularly boorish Will would let his dogs take over collection for him.

Not for this one though, he would follow them if only to see what had become of the foundling that haunted his memory.

But when Will called to collect, that trembling waif of years ago, bathed in the memory of a piercing winter, was long gone.

Young Hannibal had had 40 years to grow, a lifetime to sink or swim. In his place stood a monster.

"Hannibal Lecter" he named the creature before him. The man stood tall, turned that unfathomable gaze unflinchingly upon him. Behind him, a being of little more than shadow and pain paced. It shone with a vicious beauty, all sharpened antlers and strong sinuous limbs. The shadow of a man with two faces. His very own paramour.

Hannibal had filled since youth, the harsh angles of his face rounding into something pleasant. A healthy flush of blood now settled under his skin, muscle and bone fed well enough.

"The spectre from my memories come to life. Have you come for my soul Will?" amusement danced in the lines around his eyes.

Will smiled, something small and almost wistful, "You are no longer a boy, quivering at monsters in the forest."

He was tall now, a well put together gentleman, powerful in body and mind. He could see echoes of a truculent teen, a bold, austere young man, maturing into the beautiful nightmare who stood before him. An ethereal creature feeding treats to his adoring hounds. With a flick of his wrist and a sharp whistle, Will banished them back home. He wanted Hannibal all to himself, selfish as it was.

" _One should only be afraid of those things which have the power of doing others harm; for the rest, fear not; because they are not fearful_."

"Dante. Tell me Doctor Lecter, do you think I cannot do you harm? Do you think I would possess compassion enough to save your soul? That I would want to?" The barest hint of a smirk played about his mouth. There was a game brewing between them, a battle of wills the like of which Will had scarcely ever had the chance to engage in.

"On the contrary, my soul was lost to you when I was just a boy. Il Mostro, the Chesapeake Ripper; titles I bare for you, given through fear. _As phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall_ , so my reign begins and ends"

"You think yourself ready to walk into my domain? Life in this realm is nothing compared to what lies in mine" he said, though he knew he would do whatever it took to keep this monster of a man separate from his foul livestock.

Hannibal cocked his head, searching with the laser focus of a doctor twice over. "Tell me Will, why did you come for me as a boy? Why give me so long to stretch my wings as the beast you made me? Did you watch me Will? Did you see my craft develop as I aged, see what the gift you gave me allowed me to become."

"I will admit I did not find you that interesting."

"And now?"

"Your gifts have haunted me, Hannibal. I had no idea such beauty lay in the hands of the dying child I met shivering in the cold. The scent of you preoccupies my mind." The hollow drop in his belly as the Doctor preened under his praise was a feeling best locked away for later study. The monster of shadow who lurked over Hannibal's shoulder shivered with pleasure. "Your punishments are of an interest to me. Your gifts."

" _Necessita c'induce, e non diletto_ , though I will admit I am glad you enjoyed them all the same. I find that people are often boorish and weak, I merely helped them toward their deserved fates."

"How dare they survive when those dearest to you were not permitted."

Hannibal shuffled uncomfortably, barely detectable certainly to anyone other than Will.

"Quite so" he coughed.

"Do you still think of her often? Little Mischa?"

"There are chambers of my mind dedicated purely to her memory. I admit the sorrow of her passing may have aided my transformation". His eyes took on a distant look, as if he was searching through the rooms of his mind for an image of her.

"And yet it does not consume you"

"Did you think a weak little boy would end up in your realm soon enough, is that why you did not come to collect? Given the strength of soul to carry out the purest deeds of his heart, a boy finds he is capable of more than he dreams possible."

The creature at his back straightened as if in protection of him, its eyes glinting a dull red reminiscent of dried blood. He could see Hannibal's own visage in the slopes and angles of its hellish face. The pride in which it carried itself a telling marker of its heritage. The shadowed Janus, a physical manifestation of Hannibal's own metamorphosis. The scent that haunted him the sharp-cold smell of winter, and the copper of a young boy's grief. It was magnificent.

"Hell is filled with the same souls in different guises. The same punishments befalling the same transgressions in an endless cycle. It is rare to find a gem such as yours amongst the muck and the mire."

The creature preened in response, and Will was instantly captivated by the impression he had of the man before him and the shadow being starting to blur. Their combined beauty was marvellous.

Lecter's eyes were almost fully dilated he was interested to see, had been for quite some time. Perhaps he felt it too, this inexplicable tug between them. "Tell me" he whispered, almost a sigh.

"Your soul, Hannibal, like a black hole. The touch of redemption won't reach you for another million years or more, that's how far away from my father's light you are."

His doctor gave a soft inhale which shuddered through his entire frame.

"I will admit I thought often of you, of whether you received and appreciated my gifts. I thought to become myself a being worthy of your company."

In response, Will prowled forward into his space, his movement fluid, almost sexual in nature. From that close he could see the chill of his body raising gooseflesh on the good Doctors skin. He wanted nothing more than to touch that delicate, corruptible flesh. To watch the chill stretch deeper into Hannibal's very being.

"You are a devil yourself Hannibal," he murmured, "borne of hatred and righteousness in the shivering winters of your becoming. Your soul is long gone, irredeemable, there is no punishment in the pits of my realm that could make you repentant because there is no remorse left inside of you."

If anything this seemed to amuse Hannibal further. There was a smile in the corners of his eyes, and pleasure in the minute fluttering of his eyelids.

"What, then, are we to do?" he all but purred, an invitation handed on a silver platter. Oh but he was good at this. He took a daring step forward, so that their bodies were almost flush, mere millimetres between them. Will could do little but lean into his space, endlessly fascinated by the magnetic draw between them. Even he, in all his fatal power, did not know how this game between them would end.

"Join me Hannibal." He murmured, like a declaration of love. "You are become a beast like myself. My becoming and yours complement each other. The young waif who sought retribution and the king who sought distraction, we are no more."

"Years have separated out fated meetings, and yet we have begun to merge, you and I. Something of the devil seeded inside my soul when I was still that hopeless orphan, half dead in the cold. I imagine something of my childish captivation clung to you"

"Then surely the only place left for you is to rule by my side"

"Yes" Hannibal breathed. "We are the same, you and I, we see the same thing"

"This world is full of worthless creatures wallowing in the mires of their own self-righteousness" Will spat with all the vehemence of someone who has had to spend countless millennia watching lesser being wallow in their own filth.

"The livestock of the world, always so horribly rude." Hannibal concurred, amusement playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Join me, punish them. Rule by my side."

With each word Will's breath fanned across Hannibal's skin, unbearably cold like the winters of old. Though the associations were unpleasant for Hannibal, he found it easy enough to disregard them entirely. There was something much more fascinating waiting for him. Tired of punishing the worthless and running circles around authorities too banal in their investigations to catch wind of him, he craved something new, something more.

There was no hesitation as he closed the distance, and pressed a solemn "I accept" to Will's skin.

The deal was sealed with a kiss this time. Hannibal could feel a cold numbness spreading out across his body the longer they stayed locked in their embrace. The fingers which traced reverently across Will's delicate, beautiful horns lost feeling, the very legs that held him began to buckle. And then a feeling, like a punch to the chest, but throughout every nerve in his body. Will gasped against him as a new life surged through his very core. The hazy image of a man that Will had sought after stood before him, proud and handsome.

"It's beautiful" Will breathed, reverently running hands up through his hair, and past to the polished antlers that crowned him at last.

The next time Will ventured out of his realm it was with his husband, on the hunt for a fresh young soul they could rend and change together. A daughter for them perhaps.


End file.
